we turn over the pages of ancient or modern history, we shall find that the same elements have been always in operation; the wild vagaries of the imagination have ever been at war with reason and truth; and common sense has been taken captive by ignorance and fraud. Numerous false schemes, quite as empty and quite as worthless as those of Perkins and Hahnemann, have appeared, raged, boasted, and made their converts, and finally passed away.
In the early part of the sixteenth century, a man by the name of Paracelsus, a native of Switzerland, made his appearance as a bold empiric. Like all others of the class, he set at naught and held in contempt and derision all existing medical knowledge, and announced that he had made a great discovery that was to supersede all other medical means. And what was this pretended discovery? Something to purify the blood, or an infallible remedy for rheumatism, or scrofula, or consumption? No, none of these; but an infallible Elixir, that would prolong human life indefinitely, and render man immortal. But, alas! this superlative
